


Pies and Secrets

by jncar



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Pushing Daisies
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Killian as Ned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 11:58:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1898142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jncar/pseuds/jncar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killian Jones could bake pies and wake the dead. Emma Swan was a down on her luck P.I. with a penchant for knitting. A CS/Pushing Daisies AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pies and Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> For CS AU week on Tumblr.

Killian Jones was the down on his luck proprietor of The Pie Hole who was learning, much to his chagrin, that if one's establishment served nothing but pie, ice cream, and coffee, it was hard to keep one's business afloat. 

Killian knew that he could only do two things with any degree of excellence: he could bake pies, and wake the dead.

The story was this:

When young Killian was nine years, two months, eight hours and seventeen minutes old he and his older brother Liam were frolicking with their golden retriever, David, in a field near their home. David, over-exited by the Frisbee the boys had been tossing him, darted out into the street where he was hit by a passing pick-up truck and killed. The truck did not stop.

Killian, shocked by his sudden encounter with death, crouched over his beloved pup and touched it gently on the shoulder. Much to everyone's surprise, David lifted his head and trotted back into the field, barking eagerly for another toss of the Frisbee.

The brothers didn't know what to make of Killian's newfound power, and vowed to keep it a secret until they knew more.

Unfortunately, death would soon visit their home again.

Twenty years five months nine days and sixteen hours later, Killian looked up from the dough he was rolling on the counter in The Pie Hole kitchen to see a blonde woman of remarkable beauty taking a seat in a booth near the door.

Though past experience had left Killian leery of romantic relationships, something about the blonde woman made his heart race and his breath come in quick gasps.

When his waitress, Ruby, came back to fetch the woman's order, he asked, "What is she getting?"

"Peach raspberry," Ruby replied. "Let's hope she likes it. We could use a few new regulars."

Killian had no doubts regarding the quality of the peach raspberry pie, as his touch had, just a few hours ago, resurrected the fruits to the height of ripeness and flavor. And he suspected that he would very much like the blonde woman to become a regular.

Two days later, when the blonde woman returned, Killian, eager to find out the blonde's favorite, told Ruby to recommend the caramel apple. She came back to report that the blonde had order rhubarb instead.

The blonde kept returning, and every time she did Killian would have Ruby pass along a new recommendation. The blonde always ordered something else. Killian wondered whether she did it on purpose to be contrary, or whether she was simply strong willed and knew exactly what she wanted every time she stepped through the door.

As the weeks passed, thanks to Ruby's chatty nature, Killian learned that the woman's name was Emma—a simple yet lyrical name that Killian found soothing to whisper under his breath as he worked. He also learned, through his own observation, that from time to time after finishing her pie, Emma would pull some knitting out of her bag and work for a half an hour before leaving.

While she was knitting, she looked almost happy.

~ ~ ~

Emma Swan was a down on her luck private investigator with a penchant for knitting to ease her worries. Nearly every evening she frequented a quaint eatery near her office called The Pie Hole.

At first she came because the name made her smile, and her smiles had been all too rare, lately. But it was the pie that kept her coming back. Thirty or more mouth-wateringly delectable flavors with the flakiest, most buttery crust and the ripest most flavorful fruit she'd ever tasted. She found that a good slice of pie was just as soothing for her worries as more than a hour of knitting—and the pie was much easier on her fingers.

But the pie was not the only thing that brought her back. She also came back for the pie maker.

Emma's past experiences with romantic relationships had made her leery of ever indulging her feelings again. However, she was a woman who enjoyed a good view while she ate. And the archway behind the counter of The Pie Hole afforded an excellent view of the kitchen—and the devilishly attractive pie maker. Always clad in a plain black tee-shirt tight enough to display a sleek, athletic body, and with a basic white apron around his waist, the pie maker never ventured out from behind his counter. But Emma could glimpse enough of him and his pretty face and dark hair to know she enjoyed what she saw. It took her three weeks two days and five hours to get close enough to see the vivid sky-blue of his eyes, but it was worth the wait.

The story was this:

After rejecting the chef's suggestions offered by the overly talkative waitress every single time Emma came, the pie maker finally stepped out of the kitchen and walked up to the counter. Looking directly at Emma, he called out, "I'm curious—why don't you ever order the chef's suggestions?"

While this came a little too close to flirting for Emma's comfort, she could never resist a direct challenge. She rose from her table and strode to the counter, holding his intensely blue gaze. "Because I'm never in the mood for what you suggest."

The corners of his mouth curled ever so slightly upward. "One of these days I'll figure out your favorite flavor, and I'll make that the chef's suggestion. What'll you do then?"

Emma crossed her arms over her chest and allowed a smile to grace her face. Perhaps a little flirting would do no harm. It's not like he'd ever come out from behind that counter. "If you can figure out my favorite and make it the chef's suggestion, then I'll order a whole pie."

"That sounds like a fair bargain," he replied, his smile growing.

"It's a deal." Emma held out her hand to shake on it. The pie maker did not return the gesture.

"Sorry," he said, his smile fading. "I don't really like touching people."

Emma nodded slowly, sympathy for the attractive pie maker welling in her chest. "I get it. People are complicated. Touching can make them even more complicated."

"Exactly," he replied, and as his eyes met hers, Emma felt as if she'd met someone who truly understood.

"People are complicated, pies are simple," he said. "That's why I stick to pie."

"Me too," she replied. After a moment of shared, peaceful silence, she nodded. He nodded back. And they both returned to their places—she to her booth by the door, and the pie maker to his kitchen.

Emma was glad for the simple, uncomplicated relationship she had with the pie maker. A comfortable table, a good view, and a tasty pie. That was enough.

Soon enough, however, things became more complicated than she ever could have dreamed.

Five weeks four days and eleven hours after she began frequenting The Pie Hole, Emma found herself chasing an unruly criminal across the rooftops of her own neighborhood. Emma had not collected a good fee or reward in far too long, and she was determined not to let this one slip away.

The unfortunate criminal, however, had other ideas. While attempting an ill-advised leap from one rooftop to another, he slipped on a spot of fresh bird dung, and fell careening into the alleyway directly behind The Pie Hole just as the pie maker was stepping out with a bag of garbage.

The criminal struck the dumpster with a sickening crack—and Emma knew by the limpness of the body that the man had met his doom.

However, as she watched, the criminal's body bounced and struck the pie maker. With a small flash of light, the criminal revived, shook his head, and dashed out of the alley. The pie maker followed close on the criminal's heels, reached out to graze the back of the criminal's neck with his fingertips, and, with another flash of light, the criminal slumped to the ground, once more deceased.

The pie maker raised his gaze to the rooftops to meet Emma's eyes, and both of them knew that things would never be the same again.

~ ~ ~

"A partnership?" Killian asked incredulously, trying not to be distracted by the intensity in Emma's pale green eyes as he sat across from her in her booth by The Pie Hole door. He felt as if he was seeing his establishment for the first time from this new perspective, and he hated feeling so out of control.

"Fifty-fifty. Folks in this area just love offering rewards for catching the perpetrators of unsolved murders. Those murders will be a hell of a lot easier to solve if we can ask the victims who killed them. And don't tell me the prospect of reward money doesn't interest you, because Ruby's dropped plenty of not-so-subtle hints that this place is in financial trouble." Emma smiled at him and tapped the table impatiently.

Killian clenched his jaw at the sound of the ugly truth. "I confess, we're not turning the profits I'd been hoping for."

"So do we have a deal?" Emma asked, arching her brow.

Killian grimaced. While he had long hoped to make a living baking the confections he so dearly loved, he had to admit that he needed a fresh infusion of money. "Only until The Pie Hole is back on more solid financial footing. Then I'm out."

"Good enough for me," Emma said brightly. "Deal."

"Deal," he replied, grateful that she had not raised her hand to shake.

~ ~ ~

Emma didn't understand why Killian's bizarre power had such odd rules: sixty seconds of life for free, after that for the resurrected being to stay alive someone else would have to die. The first touch life, a second touch a permanent death. No wonder the man was uncomfortable with touch. (And she really didn't want to know how he'd figured out all those rules—it surely involved something grisly and unsavory and she was better off not knowing.)

Their first case went well. Emma slipped a twenty to Smee, the night clerk at the morgue, and he let them in to see the body—a man mauled to death by a dog, with his own pooch on the chopping block. 

The sight of the man's grotesquely disfigured face was almost enough to make Emma wretch, but Killian didn't even bat an eye. One touch, a flash of light, a brief conversation, and they walked away knowing it was the angry secretary and her Rottweiler to blame.

Emma sat in their booth and grinned at her wad of cash as Killian placed a slice of coconut cream pie in front of her and sat down to watch her eat. She raised an eyebrow at his gaze, lifted her fork, and took a bite.

The cream filling melted in her mouth, momentarily lifting her brain to a distant tropical clime with a sky the exact shade of Killian's eyes. She swallowed, coming back to herself.

"Well?" he asked. "Is it your favorite?"

She pointed her fork at him. "It is excellent. But it's not my favorite."

The corners of his mouth turned up and he smiled. "Perhaps next time."

"Feel free to keep trying," she replied.

He continued to watch her as she took a few more bites. "What?" she finally asked. "Do I have cream on my nose or something?"

He shook his head. "No. I was just thinking… you know my biggest secret, but I don't know any of your secrets, yet. If we're going to be partners, maybe you should tell me something about yourself."

Emma took a deep breath. So he wanted to get personal, now. She should have expected this. Fine. One fact. That was it. "I grew up in the foster system."

Killian nodded slowly. "Huh," he said.

Emma arched her brow. That wasn't the reaction she'd expected.

"It's just curious to find that our childhoods were so similar," he said a moment later. "I grew up in the foster system, too."

Emma's heart fluttered in her chest. But she knew better than to let feelings get in the way of a good business arrangement. "Huh."

~ ~ ~

After their second case, Killian presented Emma with a slice of cherry pie a la mode, his hopes high. She did seem to prefer fruit pies.

However, after her first bite, he was once again disappointed.

"It's good," she said. "But still not my favorite."

Killian nodded slowly. His curiosity about the knitting P.I. had been growing by the day, and knowing that their childhoods had been so similar had only intensified his desire to learn more. He wondered if Emma would be receptive to more tit for tat.

"I had an older brother," he said. "My birth father left us and my birth mother was a junkie, so we were taken away and put into the system. When I was seven, we were adopted together. My adoptive mom is the one who taught me how to bake pies. I still use her crust recipe."

Emma nodded slowly. "No one ever adopted me," she said, a note of bitterness in her voice. "I was in foster care and group homes until I was seventeen and ran away. Been on my own ever since."

Killian had the feeling that there was more to the story, but he also had the feeling that now was not the time to ask.

~ ~ ~

After their third case, Emma sat in her booth waiting for Killian to appear with another attempt at her favorite pie and another personal question. She wasn't sure how much she was ready to share with him, yet, though, surprisingly, she found herself eager to learn more about his past.

He set the plate in front of her and took his seat across from her, raising his eyebrow eagerly.

"Classic apple pie," she said, digging in her fork. "Nice. But still not my favorite." She chewed, savoring the flaky crust and tart apples with a hint of cinnamon and cardamom. Very nice. But he hadn't won, yet.

"My adoptive mother died when I was nine," Killian said abruptly.

Emma set down her fork and bit lightly down on her bottom lip. Maybe he hadn't had it so much better than her, after all.

"I'd only just figured out what I could do," he said. "I didn't know the rules yet. So when she collapsed of a sudden aneurysm in her brain, naturally I touched her back to life. She thought she'd just slipped and fallen. But one minute later my brother fell out of the tree he'd been climbing in the yard, and he never got back up."

Emma held her breath. Shit.

Killian shrugged. "When the paramedics were working on him, my mother hugged me, and…"

"Oh God!" Emma exclaimed. "I'm sorry. I… I'm really sorry."

Killian swallowed hard and nodded. "That's why I'm always so careful."

In a moment of surging compassion, Emma forgot that the pie maker disliked being touched, and reached out to rest her fingers on the back of his hand.

Killian squeezed his lips together, but did not pull away.

Emma, in a fit of uncharacteristic openness, decided to share her deepest pain with Killian in return for the story of his.

"I have a kid," she said. "A son. Henry. I haven't seen him in six years. I had him when I was 18 and his dad was 25. We stuck it out for almost a year after he was born, but split up after that. There was a long custody battle, and Neal thought he should have won because he had a better job than me. But I got custody instead. The next time he had a weekend with Henry, he packed up the car and split. I haven't seen them since. Last I heard Neal had moved him to Canada, but I lost track of them in Vancouver."

Emma sighed. After all this time the lonely P.I. could no longer muster tears for the son she had lost. "That's why I became a detective. Because I wanted to learn the skills to find my son and get him back. Not that it's done me any good. I haven't seen him since he was two. He won't even recognize me, now."

"You'll find him someday," said Killian, holding her gaze, his voice filled with confidence. "I believe in you."

Though Emma, leery of feelings as she was, felt reluctant to admit it, after that evening things between her and the pie maker changed. After a few more weeks of sharing pie and personal stories, she had to admit to herself that she was falling for him.

~ ~ ~

Killian could not hide from the truth. Every time Emma arrived with a new case he felt tingles of excitement up and down his spine. And every time he presented her with her congratulatory slice of pie, hoping that he'd finally found her favorite, his heart raced in anticipation of her first bite.

He was falling for her.

"One of my foster sisters taught me to knit," she told him, after finishing her slice of French Silk. "We found a box of old yarn in the attic and our foster mother let us have it. We made about a dozen scarves each before we went through it all. We'd just started saving up for more yarn to try our hand at hats when I was sent to a new home. I never saw her again."

Killian sighed at this new piece of Emma's long, lonely story.

He'd already shared the biggest pain from his past with her, so on a whim he decided to share his second biggest pain. "I was in love once," he admitted. "Five years ago." He shook his head. "She was married. It ended badly. I haven't opened up to anyone since."

Emma sucked on her bottom lip and toyed with the skein of yarn she'd been fingering. "I haven't been in love since Neal."

They sat in silence for a few minutes after that, but it was not the silence of awkward first dates or uncomfortable discussions with doctors. It was the silence of two people united in their support of one another—sharing their pain and their friendship in the quiet space between them.

For the first time in five years, Killian felt truly happy.

~ ~ ~

Four months one week and three days after beginning their partnership, Emma stepped into The Pie Hole with an exciting new case—attached to a very exciting reward—to share with Killian.

She wore a smile on her face as she approached the counter, as she always did these days. "I've got a good one," she said. "Rich man's wife poisoned to death. No suspects." She slapped a photograph down on the counter between them. "Milah Gold."

Killian stared down at the photo, and Emma stared at him. At the sound of Mrs. Gold's name, he froze as stiff as a corpse, and while he stared at the photo all of the color drained from his face.

Emma had a very bad feeling about this. "Do you… know her?"

Killian nodded slowly. "She was the woman who broke my heart."

~ ~ ~

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Emma said as she followed Killian toward the funeral home where Mrs. Gold was already laid out in preparation for her viewing. "I mean, the reward is nice, but we both have a good sum in the bank right now. We can pass this one up if it would be easier for you."

Killian paused, not meeting her eyes, and shook his head. "I loved her once. The least I can do to honor the memory of that relationship is to help bring her murderer to justice."

He stepped toward the funeral home again and Emma, heedless of his dislike of human touch, took his arm. "First—tell me what happened between you. Why did it end?"

Killian sighed. "Her husband wanted to work things out. And there was a prenuptial agreement. She would have gotten almost nothing in a divorce."

Emma clenches her teeth in sympathetic heartbreak. "Greed. She left you out of greed."

Killian nodded. "I'd been working as an accountant in one of the subsidiaries of her husband's corporation. That's how we met. But after that I quit to go start The Pie Hole. I thought maybe doing something that I loved would help me get over her."

"Did it work?" Emma couldn't help but ask.

Killian looked at the ground and spoke in a raspy, frightened voice. "I don't know."

~ ~ ~

After slipping the funeral director a very generous bribe he opened the door for the viewing room for them. Killian gripped the edge of the door, squeezing his eyes closed. His heart pounded painfully in his chest.

"I think I need to do this alone," he said.

Emma's eyes held bottomless concern, but instead of protesting she nodded. "Okay. I'll be right out here when you need me."

Killian tried to force a smile, and then slipped into the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

With slow, deliberate steps he moved toward the coffin.

When he reached it, he gripped the edge of the lid and lifted it.

There she lay. His Milah.

He could read the past five years in the lines of her face. 

Staring down at his lost love, Killian knew, finally, that there was no going back. He was no longer the young, eager corporate accountant that had first given into his forbidden love. No—he'd changed into the cautious and withdrawn pie maker. But he hadn't stayed that man either. He was changing again, since meeting Emma, and Killian did not yet know who he would become.

He raised his eyes to gaze at the closed door, knowing that Emma stood on the other side. Waiting for him. Trusting him.

His breath shook as he turned back to Milah's still, cold face and lifted a single finger to brush her cheek.

~ ~ ~

Meanwhile, out in the hall with the unsuspecting funeral director, Emma's guts churned with anxiety. What if Killian couldn't do it? What if he couldn't bear to be parted from his lost love a second time? A life for a life—those were the rules. Who would pay the price?

(Emma tried not to dwell on the fact that more than half her anxiety came not from fear of sudden, magical death, but from the worry that Killian still loved Milah Gold, which meant his heart was not open to loving someone else. Someone like herself.)

The seconds ticked by and Emma's anxiety rose. Should she warn the funeral director? Should she run? Should she dash into the room and force Killian to touch his old love back to death?

When she was about to spring into action—though what action she still did not know—the door to the room opened and Killian stepped back out. He looked pale and more than a little ill, but he smiled at her.

"It's done," he said simply.

Emma nodded and fought the urge to dash back into the room to check on the status of Mrs. Gold. She followed Killian back into the sunlight.

"So," she said, as they walked back toward her car, "did you get a name?"

Killian nodded. "Her husband. Now that they've been married ten years she's entitled to more money and assets under the terms of the prenuptial agreement. She'd been planning to leave him."

Emma swallowed hard. "So she was finally going to be single. Were you… tempted? At all?"

Killian stopped walking and turned to hold her gaze. His eyes were filled with unreadable emotion. "No," he said. "There was no way to know who would die in her place, and there was someone in that funeral home that I would never trade for Milah's life. It wasn't worth the risk."

Emma's heart jumped and a lump in her throat made it impossible for her to speak. For the first time since Neal left with her son, she started to think she'd finally found someone she could open her heart to. She nodded and blinked back the moisture she felt rising in her eyes.

They turned to walk back down the path away from the funeral home, and as they walked Emma reached out to take the pie maker's hand in her own. He did not pull away. In fact, he squeezed her hand tightly against his side.

When they reached her car Emma regained her voice. Looking up to meet Killian's blue eyes, she said, "Peach raspberry."

His eyebrows shot up.

She smiled. "That's my favorite. Peach raspberry."

Killian, bemused, smiled back. "The kind you ordered the first time you came to The Pie Hole. I should have guessed."

Emma shrugged. "It probably seemed too obvious to be true."

Killian squeezed the hand he still held, and his eyes shifted nervously. "Would you like me to make you one when we get back?"

"Yes. I'd like that very much."

~ ~ ~

Six hours eighteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds later, Killian Jones kissed Emma Swan for the first time. She tasted of peaches and raspberries.

 

The End


End file.
